MEGACEROS HIBERNICUS. 455 
rangement of the extensive and diversified species of the 
great Linnean genus Cervus, to regard the subject of the 
present section as the type of a distinct subgenus, for 
which the term Megaceros, originally applied by Dr. Hart 
as the ‘nomen triviale’ of the extinct species, may be 
retained, as indicative of the most striking and charac- 
teristic feature of the antlers, viz., their great proportional 
size. 
The weight of the skull and antlers of the Megaceros in 
the Museum of the College of Surgeons in London, is 
seventy-six pounds avoirdupoise: that of the skull and 
antlers of the specimen in the Royal Dublin Society is 
eighty-seven pounds, avoirdupoise. ‘The average weight of 
the skull, without the horns or lower jaw, is five pounds 
and a quarter. From the identity of texture of these 
enormous cranial weapons with those of the Deer-tribe, and 
from the development of the burr at the base, we may 
infer that the large bloodvessels, shown by their impres- 
sions to have been spread so richly over the surface of the 
antlers during the period of growth, were ultimately oblite- 
rated, and that the antler, then losing its vitality, was un- 
dermined by the absorbent process, and cast off. Such 
shed antlers, showing the characteristic convex surface of 
the detached base beneath the burr, have been frequently 
found in Ireland. Dr. Hart has noticed them in his tract 
above cited, and the base of one in the British Museum is 
figured in cut 194. It cannot be doubted but that the 
growth and shedding of the antlers of the Megaceros, 
obeyed the same periodical law as do those of all existing 
deer: but, when we reflect that between sixty and seventy 
pounds’ weight of osseous matter was annually thrown out 
by the carotids in the course of three or four months, we 
may well exclaim, with Redi, “* Maxima profectd admira- 
